In 1985, two ambitious twenty-somethings decided to climb the only mountain in the Peruvian Andes never to have been conquered--the 21,000 foot peak Siula Grande. Because Kevin Macdonald's documentary, Touching the Void, features both climbers recounting the story, we know that the two made it back down safely. For some reason, though, this provides little comfort as we watch their harrowing struggle unfold.
Using a mixture of pure documentary and dramatization, Void delves into the tale of Joe Simpson and Simon Yates' successful ascent to the summit, followed by, of course, disaster. Simpson falls and breaks his leg--the tibia and fibula actually driving through his knee joint.
Simpson is certain that Yates will have to leave him to die on the mountain, and Yates frankly admits to secretly wishing Simpson would just fall off the face at that moment, so he could make it down alive himself with a clear conscience. It is this sort of uncomfortable honesty and raw exploration of the less heroic facets of human nature that makes Void stand out as more than just another story of "what I went through and how I lived to tell about it."
The morality gets more complex when Yates--although he does attempt to take Simpson down the mountain--is forced to cut the rope binding him to his partner, setting himself up for endless ridicule from the climbing community. Yates recalls that on his way down the mountain, he shamefully considered fabricating a story to make himself look better. Yates' guilt is misplaced, though, as Simpson has somehow survived and fallen into a deep, snowy ravine.
The film gets a bit tiresome as it indulges in a Jack London-esque epic of Simpson's miraculous journey to safety, and pragmatists might be bothered by the nagging thought that if this was so gosh-darn dangerous maybe they just shouldn't have done it in the first place.
Void's greatest strength is that it makes no effort to be redemptive. Unlike in John Krakauer's Into Thin Air, here we never feel as though either climber is asking for our forgiveness or even sympathy. Rather, Macdonald's film asks only our consideration of the terrifying possibility that perhaps when faced with unbearable circumstances, our first instincts are anything but noble. Void presents a stark image of two men equally capable of selfishness and heroism, frailty and might.
Touching the Void will be playing at The Carolina Theatre in downtown Durham through March 25.
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